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Have you ever recycled an old computer or laptop? Where did you take it, and what steps did you take to protect your personal information?

No, but I've never thrown a computer away either. My husband and I have owned quite a few Macs. Our first Mac was a Performa. Yeah, we became Apple converts before Macs were iMacs and even before OS X. Every Mac we've ever owned has either been resold or given to someone else to use. Even Macs that were no longer working (and we decided weren't worth repairing--upgrade time!), we would sell or give away the parts for someone else to use. I've heard people complain about how expensive Macs are, but you get your money's worth. Over the long haul I think buying Apple computers versus buying Windows/PC's has been a much better investment for us.

As far as protecting your personal information, to be honest we've never taken any special steps. We have just used Apple's own formatting software. If the computer was going to a stranger, we would give it a few more swipes than if it was going to a friend or relative, but that's about it.

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This Tami Family Thanksgiving Saturday was all about self forgiveness. I forgave myself and didn't worry that my children might be running my relatives ragged with all their little energy. I forgave myself and didn't worry that Emma was cranky most of the day and I let my relatives futilely try to comfort her as I relaxed. I forgave myself and let Micah thoroughly enjoy his Thanksgiving meal by squishing his hands in it, smearing it all over himself and eating as much as he wanted along the way. I forgave myself (and Joel) and didn't worry that Joel wet his pants twice today because he was having so much fun he forgot to go to the bathroom. Really, I felt like one of the men on this holiday. When a kid screamed I wasn't the first to get up. When a diaper needed to be changed I waited for volunteers. I even sat down and watched football with all the fellas (BTW, I cannot believe that Kentucky could not pull out the win against Tennessee and now Georgia won't get to be in the SEC championship game!). I don't plan on being so self-forgiving every year, but man, it was fun this year.

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No Black Friday shopping for me. In fact, my husband and I have been methodically de-cluttering.

This is our goodbye pile. We haven't decided exactly what we're doing with all of it, whether that be yard sale, craigslist, freecycle, goodwill, or donate some other place, but we do know it all has to go goodbye.

Tomorrow we're off to my family's Thanksgiving. I'll let you know how that goes.

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My family celebrates Thanksgiving on a different day from the rest of America. Their Thanksgiving will be Saturday. I'll get back to you about that on Saturday. Today was Thanksgiving at my in-law's. The spread was beautiful and delicious, the house looked great, and my mother-in-law did a wonderful job as hostess. Now, I consider myself a good parent to my children and I believe I am talented in many ways, but in many of the traditional homemaker skills I am sorely lacking. I always get all inadequate feeling around food and decorating holidays. The more important food and decorating is to the holiday, the more I tend to clam up at gatherings. I'm working on ways to get past this, but for now, it is what it is. So, as wonderful as this holiday is and should be for me, I never come home feeling that way.

It didn't help that this year the baby (the little baby) woke up with a fever and so she was cranky most of the day. The other baby (the big baby--no, not my husband) did his usual stunt routine and proceeded to trip and fall and wail the whole time. This routine is very jarring for people not around him often. Andmy three-year-old? Well,he's three. He is pushing every boundary out there.

I wanted to write a thankfulness post today, but I'm just not feeling it right now. And I know that should be all the more reason to write about my thankfulness, but I just gotta purge a little frustration first. I'm thankful that I have a place to do that. :)

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This year has really blown by for me. I know tomorrow is Thanksgiving, but I still can't believe thattomorrow's Thanksgiving. Then there's Christmas, and then on to a new year. I keep trying to cherish and remember those little moments with my children, but it all seems to be rushing by so fast. Emma is not a newborn anymore. While I'm thrilled that she is progressing well, I will miss the little bundle of cuddle that you only get from a newborn. Micah is marching headstrong out of babyhood into full fledged toddler-hood. He wants so badly to play with the big boys. My big boy Joel is learning so many new things so fast lately that I worry I'm not keeping up with the pace. It's an awesome thing to see a child grow to better understand the world around him, to watch as things he was once obliviously ignorant towards suddenly bloom with meaning. It goes fast.

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A friend of mine is trying to startup a photography business. When she offered to take some free pictures of my family for practice I gladly accepted. Here are some of my favorite pictures of the kids.

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I recorded this video using my MacBook's iSight camera. The funniest part to me, well aside from when my son decides he needs a second take and says "No, go back, go back," is at the end when you can see my son's face as he maneuvers the trackpad to stop recording, so he can watch the video. He's three years old. They learn fast.

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Emma's not sleeping through the night, which is not a huge deal usually. I don't really expect her to sleep through the night right now. I mean, if she does, great, but if not, I've got my routine down pretty well that allows me to deal with not getting eight (five!) hour stretches of sleep at one time. But on days that I don't get any kind of nap during the day I'm pretty well dead by the end of the day, which is right about now. So I'm going to bed to (hopefully!) get some sleep.

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My husband is a journalism teacher and so we're both a little sensitive about copyright. I do a lot of volunteer design work and my budget is usually next to nothing. Here are some really cool design resources on the cheap:

Free Stock Photos:
http://www.morguefile.com/
http://www.sxc.hu/

Free Photoshop Brushes:
http://getbrushes.com/

Free Background Textures:
http://textureking.com/

Vectorize Images for Free:
http://vectormagic.stanford.edu/

Enjoy!

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I got my first postpartum period recently. So, I'm starting my first month of Natural Family Planning. I'm a little nervous and a little excited about it. I've read two books and taken a course. I should be able to do this, right? I will say that I was pretty sure when I was about to start my period this go around by noticing the body signs stuff I learned through NFP. My prediction was only off by one day (early) for when I would start. Not too bad for someone who has never done this. I decided to use the rules in The Art of Natural Family Planning book, but use the chart from Taking Charge of Your Fertility. I'm kind of bummed my postpartum amenorrhea didn't last longer, but I will admit that I did (do) use a pacifier and I didn't get to have a daily nap-feeding as often as I would have liked, which are both things that help extend your natural infertility after giving birth. For those of you interested here's the full list:

1. Do exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life; don't use other liquids and solids.
2. Pacify your baby at your breasts.
3. Don't use bottles and pacifiers.
4. Sleep with your baby for night feedings.
5. Sleep with your baby for a daily-nap feeding.
6. Nurse frequently day and night, and avoid schedules.
7. Avoid any practice that restricts nursing or separates you from your baby.
source: The Art of Natural Family Planning by John F. Kippley and Sheila K. Kippley

This go around I was really trying to avoid the pacifier. Not because I think it's bad for the kid, but really because I was interested in prolonging my postpartum amenorrhea. And, I thought, it doesn't harm her by not having a pacifier (some would argue it actually benefits her to not have a pacifier). I tried, I really tried, but as strange as it may seem, there were times that she did not want to be pacified at the breast and in a moment of desperation I gave her a pacifier and she liked it. So I would remove the pacifier and try to give her the breast, and she would cry again. I tried that a number of times, but had the same outcome. So, I figured, I understand what I'm doing and there are worse things in life than having your period come back early.

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It was awesome! At the end of the day all sorts of people were asking me "So, how was it?" which is code for "Did you survive?!" What's so funny about that is that not only did I survive, it was soooo much easier than being at home with my three crazy ones (this day, at least). I'm in the baby class. On Wednesdays there are only five kids (including two of mine). So I'm only taking care of two more little ones than I'm already used to AND there's another teacher in there with me. It was so great! Micah and Emma are in the class with me, and Joel is in the three year old class. Micah and Emma did great in the new environment, and it was so wonderful getting to spend so much time with Micah. I wasn't expecting it, but it really tugged at my heart strings when Joel went off to his class by himself. I was so worried for him. No particular reason, just being a mom I guess. But he did great. The teacher told me that he listens well (Can you come home with me?!) and he just needs to get used to the routine, which is expected. The other kids have been doing this for almost three months, or longer if they came in previous years. At lunch I asked Joel about his day.

"Did you like school?"
He nodded yes."What did you do today?" "Play with girl toys." "Oh really, did you play house?""Yes""Was it fun?""uh-huh""Well, good."
This was Joel's first time in a preschool class, and he did well and had fun. I can feel my heart swelling and breaking all at the same time.

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Like I've said before, my husband is a language arts and journalism teacher. That means that we have lots of books. A few years ago he finally got around to storing a bunch of them at school (two book cases worth), but we still have a bunch at home. We decided to sort through all our books and pick out ones to donate. We ended up getting rid of 86 books!

And no, I didn't just take these photos for Vox. My brother-in-law, the CPA, says that's what I need to do to document the donation and cover myself for tax purposes. However, I thought I'd post the pics for you to see since I had them anyway.

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I swear some days I feel like I'm running my own little nudist colony, except there's only one colony member and he's three years old. Today has been a constant struggle with my three year old where I find myself repeatedly saying:

Where are your clothes?!
Why don't you have pants on?
Where are the pants you had on?
Why did you take them off?
Why didn't you put them back on?
If they are dirty, why didn't you put them in the laundry room and get a clean pair to wear?
We can't walk around the house without any pants or underwear on.
You need pants on.
Go put your pants on.
Are you putting your pants on?
Do I need to come in there?

...and so on and so forth. All. Day. Long. I'll be glad when we move past this.

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My husband's parents wanted a picture with all the grandchildren for a Christmas card. So, we spent the afternoon trying to get that picture. We ended up with some that might work, nothing perfect, but most of them looked something like this:

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My alma mater beat Auburn 45-20! Not to mention the "blackout" looked pretty cool also.

Go Dawgs!

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I can't decide if I'm cheating or not. I'm readingEmma, but I'm reading it right along side of some woman who did aLibriVox recording ofEmma. It's a free book-on-tape, if you will. I love that anachronism, "book-on-tape." It's actually a book on iPod via podcast, but that's not as catchy as "book-on-tape."

Anyway, last night Jon, Joel and I all sat in bed and 'read' Emma. It was kind of a neat family bonding thing. Jon and I both had our individual copies ofEmma we were reading along in and Joel just listened. Unfortunately, I was the only one who made it through the first chapter still awake. So, unless you really can learn stuff in your sleep, I'm not sure how well reading along side the book-on-tape will work.

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I'm really starting to have a growing interest in simplifying and having less things. I come from a long line of pack rats. Growing up and even when I got out on my own I was all set to follow in my mother, grandmother and even great grandmother's footsteps. There wasn't even a consideration to do otherwise. Get things, keep them and get more things. It's the American way, right?

Well, today I took my first little step towards simplifying. I finally let go of a lot of my pre-baby (pre-babies) clothes. Getting rid of clothes is one of those things where it's just so hard to admit that even if I do get back down to that tiny size I once was in college and early marriage, my body is just not the same. Things won't fit the same. Not to mention that,girl, that was almost ten years ago (Yikes! That's weird to think about).Let go of those ten year old clothes! Yeah, baby steps. But I'm excited. I have a fat stack of clothes ready for some lucky Freecycler to pick up. And if Freecycle doesn't come through, the goodwill bin never refuses. My closet now has about half the clothes hanging in it. It's crazy the things we hang on to. Hard as it can be, I'm glad to be letting go.

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I'm readingEmma.

I'll post more later, but I had to get in a quick post for NaBloPoMo!

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My husband is a high school language arts teacher. For whatever reason he has never taught the book Emma by Jane Austen. This year he's getting a chance teach the book. In fact, his students choose for this book to be the next reading for the class. I've never read Emma and I'm planning on reading the book right along with his class. I'm kind of excited about it. I mean, the book shares the same name as my daughter. I gotta read it, right? Now, I have seen some of the Emma movies and have read other books by Jane Austen, so I've got an idea what to expect, but there's always something fun about actually reading the book. I think I'm also going to participate in some of the reader response activities that the students will be assigned. That will definitely give me fodder to keep all the NoBloPoMo-ness of it all going.

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My birthday present from my husband was a dutch door for my once dining room turned playroom. He just finished making and installing it tonight. He had to make the dutch door, because it is insanely expensive to purchase a pre-made dutch door. I'm sooo excited to have it.

Now my three-year-old can come and go from the playroom as he pleases, and I don't have to worry about 18-month-old breaking out and running wild through the house. He hasn't quite learned the play zones.

Yeah, I have play zones in my house. I get all twitchy when there are too many toys scattered in the living room. The living room is not a play zone. I'm not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination, some would argue quite the opposite, but too many toys scattered about start to make me feel edgy. So, to allow my children to play with toys and keep my sanity I have designated play zones. The dining room, or as my kids now know it, the "play room" is one of them. I've also given my kids our screened in back porch and of course their rooms to play in. The living room, kitchen, parent's room, bathroom (with exception of when the kids are actually taking a bath) are all no toys allowed. Oh, wait, there is another exception: the baby's stuff. The living room gets some of the baby stuff. This helps me keep a buffer between her and the older kids and also helps me segregate her toys. Kids are germy, mine included. I try to ease the baby into our germyness.

This is my ideal. The structure is there for this to happen in an ideal world, but, like you, we live in reality. There's toy creep. By and large, however, this system means a lot more sanity for me than if we had free rein toy playing. And my dutch door, it's all part of my toy domination plan [insert evil laugh here].

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I've got a boob infection from a bite, which broke the skin, made by certain little girl who recently got teeth. I called the doctor this morning in an effort to relieve my concern. Actually, I called two doctor offices, my OB/GYN and my family practice. I was pitting them against each other. I planned on following the instructions from whichever one was going to tell me I didn't have to come in. They both told me to come in TODAY. I ended up going to my family practice doc and she gave me some antibiotics to take. I feel like I'm back in the early days of nursing when I had curl your toes pain when the baby first latched on. Yeah, ouch!

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I'm about to go from full time stay-at-home mom to a work-out-of-the-home mom. Well, it's part-time, one day, part of one day really, and I won't be leaving my kids, but I am about to be gainfully employed. My current employment only pays in hugs and kisses with the occasional bonus nap, but I'm about to add US legal tender to those payments!

A few weeks ago I mentioned to the director of a Christian preschool/elementary school, where I do some volunteer design work, that I wouldn't mind subbing at the school if needed. My only stipulation was that my kids would need to be put into a class for the day I was subbing. That's not a big deal. I have some friends that work at the school and their kids attend there too. Well, I just got an email from the director letting me know that there's a long term sub position open at the preschool for one day a week. She asked me if I'd be interested in it. All my kids would get to go to preschool for no charge and the best part about it is that the position is in the baby class. That means that I would be able to keep the baby with me and I wouldn't need to pump (yay!). The pay's not great, but add in that my kids go to preschool for free, I still get to be with the baby AND I get paid something! I think it's a big win, win.

This will be my firstjob, job in over three years. It's kind of weird. I mean, I've done things here and there to make a little extra money, but not ajob, job. You know the kind where you clock in somewhere in the morning and clock out in the afternoon. Not that this is as job, job as it gets. I do, after all, get to have my kids with me, but you know, it's still kinda weird.

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My church has requested the creation of an online directory that is password protected. Our congregation has roughly 200 members. I would love to turn the online directory into more of a social networking thing for our congregation where members can post information about their lives (and I'm not sure what else, I would love to hear some more thinking on the possibilities). Our paper directory is divided by family with contact information and information about each individual family member (name, birthday, email, hobbies, etc.). The online directory would at least have to function as well as the paper directory.

Some of the (starting) questions that I'm getting stuck on are:

• Is this something that can be (should be) done with regular MT or should we look into Enterprise? (Is this something that should be done with MT at all?)
• What kind of budget should I ask for to do this?
• What are the possibilities for something like this?
• Is this too ambitious? I mean, we're only a congregation of 200 (on a good day). Is this just too much?
• I'm sure I'm missing thinking about something else, please chime in and let me know.

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Since I'm participating in NaBloPoMo, I've been thinking about topics I can write on for each day. Sick kids was not one of them. My morning has consisted of cleaning up lots of vomit. My poor three-year-old has caught some sort of bug. I hope no one else has it. We'll have to wait and see. My three-year-old just hasn't been able to keep much down this morning. He's so pitiful. He'll be mid-sentence telling me something and then *bleh*. It took me three times before it finally occurred to me that I should get him a bowl to use instead of floor. Thankfully I'm well acquainted with the pet mess cleaner Nature's Miracle. This stuff is awesome. I have used it much more since I've had kids than I ever did when I had indoor pets. We buy it by the gallon now.

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I was inspired by BULLETPROOFsoul and decided to participate in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo — you gotta love internet acronyms!). It's a challenge to post a blog entry for everyday in the month of November.

What's driving me crazy is because I waited too long to post an entry for today I already missed a day!!

But here's the plan: this one is going to count for November 2. Hey, you west coast people, it's still November 2 there, right? Minor technicality that in my timezone it happens to already be November 3. So let's get this straight. This is the post for November 2 and later today, er, tomorrow, well, later in the day of November 3 I'm going to write another post that will count for November 3. Got it? Good. I'm glad we got that settled.

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Recently I've had the pleasure of being around a number of people who are about to or have just recently embarked into the realm of new parenthood. Naturally, I'm thrilled for them, but I find myself having to choke back the words of unsolicited advice. The problem is I remember how much I hated unsolicited advice and I'm trying really hard not to bethat person, but I swear it's a compulsion. I almost can't help but to spill out all sort of information I wish I knew when I was in their spot. So, in an effort to purge myself of the urge to dole out unsolicited advice, I'm just going to write it all down here. If it's useful to you, wonderful, I'm thrilled to be helpful. If not, that's ok too. You do what's right for your family.

Labor

• If an unmedicated labor is something that you want, it's a good idea to try to surround yourself with people who have your same ideas and not people who will be offering pain medication (unsolicited) at every contraction.
  
• Also, one of the most painful positions to be in (which hospitals love to put you in) is what I call the "dead cockroach" position of lying flat on your back. Don't do it (or at least try to be in that position as little as possible) or you will loose your marbles because of how painful it is. Sit up, stand up, squat, rock, whatever you need to do to mitigate the pain, but lying on your back is a bad idea as far as dealing with pain.
  
• However, pain medicine is not the devil. Labor is extremely painful and you do what you need to do to get through it with a healthy mom and healthy baby. If you need it, take it.
• Once you are past the 35/36 week mark don't rush off to the hospital at the first sign of labor. For most people with full term babies the first labor is really long. Once you go to the hospital they put you on sort of a time table and if you don't progress the way they think you should, you could end up with a c-section for "failure to progress". If you labor at home as long as possible, you shorten your hospital labor time and by the time you get there you seem to be "progressing nicely".
• BEFORE the 35/36 week mark, DO RUSH off to the doctor/hospital if you suspect pre-term labor. I went in at least once for each one of my kids. Sometimes I was genuinely showing signs of pre-term labor and sometimes not. I always joked that I needed an extra tour of the Labor and Delivery unit before each of my kids births. Taking care of a preemie is no joke every and every moment in the womb helps.
  
• A c-section is always a real possibility that you should prepare for, so that you won't freak out if it happens to you. Focus on healthy mom and healthy baby, but at the same time it's ok to be sad if the birth doesn't go the way you wanted. Being sad the birth didn't go the way you wanted doesn't make you bad parents or mean you love your child any less.
• Assuming the baby is healthy and term, don't rush out to talk to the family immediately after the baby is born. They've waited this long, they can wait another 30 minutes to an hour while you have some quiet first moments with your baby. You can never have those first moments back, family can wait.

Breastfeeding

• At very least try breastfeeding. Listen, I'm raising my hand as someone who has struggled with breastfeeding and has formula fed. I know what it is like to be up in the middle of the night, feeling completely alone, bleary eyed, in extreme pain from a bad latch with a screaming baby that you desperately want to feed. I've been there. I guess my breastfeeding advice is more of ways to avoid getting to that point. Do try breastfeeding. Any breastfeeding you can give your baby is a good thing.
  
• The first thing you want to do with your baby when you first hold him/her is not meet your friends and family, but is to try to breastfeed. Remember those first quiet moments I talked about, breastfeeding is one of the things you want to do in those moment.
• Lanolin is your friend! In the beginning use it after every feeding to prevent soreness (or worse). Use it compulsively after every feeding until you are super certain that you and baby have established a good latch and breastfeeding is going well (1-2 months at least). Although lanolin does provide some relief after you've developed sore, crack, etc. nipples, in my opinion it works much better as a preventive measure.
  
• In the early days be prepared to nurse, nurse, nurse. Just go ahead and resign yourself that at this point in time you are a milk maid and don't fight it. Throw out ideas like "but he just ate" or "you can't be hungry again". This is the way newborns eat. They have a tiny tummy and breastmilk is quickly absorbed. It's normal.
  
• To establish a good milk supply be prepared to nurse on demand. No, not even "on demand"; nurse on whim. In the early days put the newborn to your breast for every ailment. Ok, not every problem will be solved by the breast. You will have to change some diapers and burp the baby, but really, for a newborn, the breast really does solve most problems. Nurse, nurse, nurse. It's normal.
• You won't ruin your baby by allowing him to nurse all the time. This is the way our bodies work. It's normal.
  

Newborns

• Caring for a newborn is a somewhat different from caring for what most people think of when they think of babies, which is about a six month old. Six month olds are all chubby, smiley and interactive. Newborns are not. You will give yourself a lot of heart ache if you try to treat your newborn like a six month old. By this I mean, don't stress about schedules and sleeping habits. All that will sort itself out in time. Right now just following your baby's lead.
  
• Newborns want to have a clean bottom, eat, sleep and be cuddled, especially with mommy. Everything else at this point is just gravy.
  
• Newborns do not sleep through the night. If you by some blessing get a child who will sleep for long periods (after about two weeks of age), enjoy it. But if your child is like most and won't sleep through the night for a while, try not to stress over it, and realize that it's normal.
• Let the baby sleep wherever the baby likes to sleep (safely of course). If the baby likes sleeping in the swing, bouncy seat, stroller, car seat, who cares that the baby is not sleeping in his crib, he is sleeping and so should you. Don't worry, allowing your baby to sleep wherever he wants to won't ruin your baby.
• Co-sleeping is a wonderful way to get some extra sleep in the beginning. Did you ever think that you would be able to multi-task in your sleep? Well, now you can feed the baby and catch up on your sleep all at the same time.
• Mom's only job in the beginning is taking care of the baby and taking care of herself. Dishes, laundry, house cleaning, older kids, etc. are all the job of husband and whoever else wants to help. You feed the baby, feed yourself, sleep and try to get a shower every now and again.
  
• The best way to start calming a crying baby is to calm yourself. Remember those skills that allowed you to get through those awful labor contractions? Those are the same skills that allows you to calm yourself while holding a screaming baby. I'm not saying it's easy, but I am saying it's possible.
  

In General

• Remember you're doing a good job. Let yourself ease into this new role.
• Let your husband find his own way with the baby. Don't micromanage him. Let him do things his way. Even if it's all wrong and that's just going to make the baby cry, leave him to it. He'll figure out his own way just like you (and you'll be glad he did!).
• Find what works for your family and do that. If no one you know of co-sleeps, but co-sleeping is working wonderfully for you, then co-sleep. And on the flip side, if you are surrounded by people that say co-sleeping is the most wonderful thing, but it's not working for you, don't do it.
  
• Trust your instincts. Remember you know your child best. You can pick up on a lot of things that others can't.
  

That's all the advice I can purge at the moment. Any early parenthood advice that you wish you would have known then?

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Show us your favorite team mascot.

Uga (pronounced UH-GUH), the University of Georgia white bulldog mascot. My very favorite Uga is Uga V. He was the mascot while I was in school at UGA. Uga V has passed on and his son Uga VI is the UGA mascot now.

Go Dawgs!

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Led Zeppelin will finally offer their music online starting next month. Of the music you buy, about how much of it do you download and how much do you buy on physical formats (CDs, vinyl, etc.)?

Almost all the music I buy now are downloads. I have a large collection of CDs collecting dust in the basement. It's all digital nowadays. I actually just got a iTunes gift card for my birthday.

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I know this is kind of weird to post this here on Vox, but I didn't see this posted anywhere else and it wasn't exactly obvious for me to figure out. So, I hope this helps someone else.

Ok, so you just upgraded your Movable Type blog to MT4. You were using pretty much default MT3.x templates (especially the comments code). You're happy with how you blog looks and aren't really interested in overhauling your templates, but you would really like to make use of the new MT4 commenting features. Here's how I did it:

Create a New Blog for parts*

• put it somewhere like yoursite.com/test/ --do not build it over your old blog
• really, you don't even need to publish it and you can delete it later
• below when I tell you to "Create template X" you will go to this blog to copy that template

Add Captcha Info to mt-config.cgi

• Add the following line(modified with your info):
• CaptchaSourceImageBase [absolute path to]/mt-static/images/captcha-source
• Example: CaptchaSourceImageBase /home/melody/www/www/mt-static/images/captcha-source

Change Blog Settings

• Your (old) Blog > Blog Settings > Comments > CAPTCHA Provider > Movable Type default > Save Changes
• Your (old) Blog > Blog Settings > Registration > [check boxes & save]

Create Index Template

• JavaScript

Create Template Modules

• Comment Detail
• Comment Form
• Comments

On Individual Entry Archive Template:

Remove from Head

• <script type="text/javascript" src="<$MTBlogURL$>mt-site.js"></script>

Add to Head

• <script type="text/javascript" src="<$MTLink template="javascript"$>"></script>

Remove from Body

• [all commenting code from <MTIfCommentsActive> to </MTIfCommentsActive>]

Add to Body(in place of above code)

• <$MTInclude module="Comments"$>

Save & Publish

*I know you can "Refresh Templates" but I think it much cleaner to harvest parts, especially if you only want to update the comments.

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I'm turning 30 this month and I'm actually really excited about it. I can't quite put my finger on why I'm so happy about it, but I am. Thirty is touted to be one of those ages that's supposed to be a little traumatic. The final closing of your childhood. "One foot in the grave," even. But it is so not that! At least that's not what I think, I'm notofficially there yet.

Maybe it's because I was always one of those people that looks much younger than they really are. Well, that might not be the case right now, I don't really know, but that was definitely the case when I got married. My poor husband and his "twelve year old bride." I was 21 people! Young, but notthatyoung. At least now I look like an adult and not some high school kid (or younger!).

Maybe it's because I like where I'm at in my life. It's funny though, I never really had aplan, per se, but I never thought by this time in my life I would be a stay-at-home mom with three kids. There's so much I could be down on myself about my place in life right now. I don't have a "career" to speak of. I have a degree which I've never used. I guess from the perspective of some I have done absolutely nothing with my life. But I love my life right now. I love my family. I love my stay-at-home mom job. I love the church. I love my friends. I have a really great life. That's not to say that I don't have my fears and frustrations, but life's good.

Maybe it's because I'm a lot more comfortable in my own skin than I have ever been before in my life. Not that I have ever been a super insecure person, but I don't mind owning my choices, my frustrations, my failings and my joys now. I also don't mind if those things are different from another person's. I don't try to make them different. I don't try to make them the same. I just let them be mine. Truthfully, I also think this had a lot to do with the timing of my third child. Having three children that are three years and younger can be extremely trying. Not to mention the bias in our culture against having more than two kids and, heaven forbid, three or more children spaced closely together. (I swear there have been times when I've wanted to jump down people's throats and ask themwhich child should I get rid of?!which one should not exist?! — but that's a post for another time.). I guess what I'm trying to say is that with all the difficulty of having so many young children plus the cultural pressure that you have done something wrong by doing that makes you have to get real comfortable in your own skin real quick or you will just go insane.

And thankfully it all happened by the time I turned 30!

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I have a personal blog that has been grossly neglected since I started up my vox blog. I recently got the bug to resurrect it (especially with the cross posting plugins for MT4). In the process I ended up rereading a lot of the old entries.

Wow, I was in a really bad place for some of those entries. Reading them just now makes me want cry. I want to go and give my old self a hug. I know this doesn't really make sense, but I want to tell her "I'm sorry." I'm sorry she went through that. I'm sorry I didn't know better to help her through those times. I'm sorry I didn't have the presence of mind to research ways to better help myself. I'm just sorry.

A lot of what I was reading was stuff that if a friend of mine came to me and told me she was going through, I would try to give her a little perspective and a lot of self forgiveness. I was pretty hard on myself at times. Thinking about it now, so much of it seems so unnecessary. Most of what I was going through were infertility, pregnancy, postpartum and new motherhood (new SAHM-hood) related. Lots and lots of other women have gone through what I went through. I shouldn't of had to feel so lonely. Why do we pretend like nobody goes through these things?

Former Self: you are not alone, it does get better, I think you're doing a fine job and you are a good mom...now give me a hug.

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I just realized that I have 17 unsent emails in my drafts folder. Wow. I don't get around to doing anything, do I? So toTommy,David, random-guy-who-wanted-to-subscribe-to-my-son's-blog-email-updates-list- who-I-thought-was-kind-of-creepy-and-was-going-to-give-the-brush-off-anyway,Camp Inagehi board, Daniel,Celeste, Jennifer, Lexann,Arvind,L'Anita and Diana:

Sorry I didn't finish our conversation. Maybe someday (like when all my kids are grown and out of the house and I have a week to sleep it off) I'll catch up. Thanks for understanding.

P.S. I know that's not seventeen people. Some of those people have more than one email that they haven't received from me. Lovely.

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I was just beginning to feel like I was getting into the groove of parenting three little ones when school started back and my husband, the public school teacher, brought home a monster of a cold. We have all now caught it. I hate being sick. And I'm breastfeeding, so that means I have limited options as to what medicine I can take. I think I could deal with all the kids being sick, but with me being sick too has completely derailed how my house is run.

Ok, so I'm open to advice, how do you do keep from falling into a dishes, laundry, toys and clutter mess when everyone (including Mom) is sick?

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Show us a birthday cake.
Submitted by kite.

I love seeing babies dig into their cake on their first birthday!

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What was your favorite road-trip of all time?
Submitted by bodhibound.

My honeymoon. We went on a road trip down the gulf coast. I get all relaxed and happy just thinking about it.

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When was the last time you felt butterflies in your stomach?

It was probably the first time I nursed in public after Emma was born. My comfort level is much better than the I'm-never-ever-going-to-breastfeed-in-public-I-need-a-closed-room-with-just-me-and-the-baby-every-time-I-nurse camp, but I'm definitely not in the let-it-all-hang-out camp for public nursing either. I'm not a big fan of the huge cover-up, but that's just me. If that's what someone else needs to be comfortable, then by all means use it. I never understood the line of thought that says if you're not completely comfortable "letting it all hang out" when nursing in public, then you're not really pro breastfeeding.

I prefer discreet public nursing (no nursing room necessary, although I'm not opposed to nursing rooms) without a cover-up. For those without experience with this either by doing it yourself or by close experience with someone else doing it, you must be wondering how in the world that is possible. I mean, you're pulling out your boob in public for heaven's sake!Don't you at least need some kind of cover-up?! So, here's my tips for discreet and comfortable public nursing without a cover-up.

Realize that the baby's head will cover up most of your breast. When nursing this way it just looks like you are cuddling your baby.

Wear double layered clothing. This is so that when you pull your shirt up to nurse you will have another piece of clothing to cover up the rest of you (your back and any other place the baby can't hide). There are a number of different ways to accomplish this. You can wear specially made nursing clothing. I have a couple of nursing shirts and they are pretty convenient, but they can also be a bit pricey. You can also wear a tank top undershirt. Be sure to wear one that is stretchy enough to pull the neck or arm hole around your breast. I've also read the idea to take old or inexpensive shirts and cut slits where your breast are (this is how many nursing shirts work). My favorite solution by far is the Belly Hugger. It's pretty much like a tube top you wear around your belly. It's great because once you pull up your shirt there's no extra piece of clothing to move out of the way (except your bra of course).

Wear a nursing bra that can be snapped and unsnapped with one hand. You want to be able to hold the baby with one hand and fix your bra with the other hand. If you are strongly right handed or vice versa, you will want to practice doing this with your "weak" hand at home to be able to easily do it in public.

When you're getting ready to nurse in public look down at yourself and the baby.Only focus on the two of you and feeding the baby. Try not to look up and worry about your surroundings until the baby has started to feed and you've covered yourself up to your satisfaction. Looking up and down, up and down, worrying if people are looking at you or if people can see anything will only slow you down and "prolong the agony". You will be much quicker (and therefore less likely to flash anything) if you just focus on feeding the baby. It's of course alright to look up and around once you are situated and comfortable.

Here's how I do it:
When you're about to nurse the baby in public reach through the neck of your shirt and unlatch the side you're about to nurse on, just unlatch it, nothing else. Then reach under your shirt (between the layer that should cover your belly and the outer layer) and finish moving the bra out of the way. Still keep your outer shirt over your breast at this time. With your outer shirt still down hold the baby like you are about to nurse. Once the baby is in place over your breast pull that side of your outer shirt up to give the baby access to your breast and latch the baby. Remember even though looking down you will be able to see your breast, the rest of the world won't be able to because the baby's head will be obstructing their view. Once the baby is latched you will be able to pull you shirt down even more right to the baby's cheek.

When the baby is done (and unlatched) the first thing you will do before moving the baby is pull down the outer shirt over your breast. At this time if you have a stroller or carrier with you, you can set the baby down or if you were wearing the baby, you can just hold him/her on your lap while you "put yourself back together." Next reach under your shirt and reposition that side of your bra. This is often the part that I've found most bothersome, because it often involves repositioning and smoothing out a nursing pad with one hand and without being able to see exactly what you're doing. All I can say is that with practice it gets easier. Once you've got that side of the bra back in position then reach in through the neck of your shirt to re-latch the bra. I've found that if I try to latch and unlatch my bra reaching from the bottom of my shirt that I end up pulling up the shirt more than I would prefer. That's just me.

Practice at home in front of a mirror. This will ease any fears that you are exposing yourself in public. It will also allow you to see anything that you're doing that may expose more than you are comfortable with and let you figure out how to correct that.

For those of you with experience nursing in public, what helped you to be comfortable?

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It's official, I've got an Amazon Baby. She's over 90th percentile on everything.

It's funny my first born, who weighed the same as her at birth, was always right at the 50th percentile. My second, who only weighed five ounces less at birth, was always at the lower end, around 25th percentile.

I went to a restaurant last night* and astonished a lady when I told her the baby was only six weeks old. Before this happened I would have thought I would be offended by her reaction (it was a big reaction), but when it actually happened I loved it. I just smiled and thought "yep, that's my fat, breastfed baby!" That's the thing, I think it would have freaked me out if she were formula fed. I've had varying degrees of success at breastfeeding with my other two children and both of them were eventually formula fed. If I'd been formula feeding her (and didn't already have the experience of two other kids to lean on) I'd have worries of overfeeding her, but you can't overfeed a breastfed baby. She just eats what she eats and that's the right amount for her.

*I hate going to restaurants lately. I have a three-year-old, a one-year-old and a newborn. It's not that my kids are terrors in the restaurant. They are actually pretty well behaved, but that still means telling my three-year-old to sit down and eat his food a few times, wrestle my one-year-old back into his high chair a few times (those stupid, futile buckles never hold him in) and make sure he has a never ending supply of finger foods while also consoling and nursing the baby. She always wants to cluster feed between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. When do you think we go to restaurants? She's also a little fussy during that time. I never get to eat in the restaurant. I always take a box home. Great, cold (reheated) expensive food. This was a good idea?

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I've had a crazy whirlwind of a first six weeks postpartum.

• My husband and I are the registrars for a summer camp. Every Sunday afternoon while the camp is in session we are out at camp to check kids in for registration. This year Emma went with me. She's visited the camp every week of her life since she's was born. Two of those six weeks were almost entirely spent out at camp. This will be her first entire week away from camp.
• I was never much of a baby wearer with my other two kids, but out of necessity I've been wearing Emma a lot and now I'm loving it!
• For someone that was never much of a baby wearer I have a surprisingly sizable number of baby wearing devices. I have Baby Björn (I also had a Infantino baby carrier, but I gave it away), a Maya Wrap style ring sling, a Moby Wrap and three Slinglings pouch slings.
  
• Lately I'm loving the pouch slings.
  
• Breastfeeding is thankfully going well. And because of camp, I've had a lot of practice nursing in public. It's more nerve wrecking than it should be. Thanks America!
  
• I love Belly Huggers! Turn any shirt into a nursing shirt.
• I've had a few baby blues and crazy hormonal moments, but thankfully so far nothing that looks like postpartum depression.
  
• Our family took a mini vacation to the Lipscomb Lectureships (now known as the "Summer Celebration"). It was a bittersweet experience. The campus is beautiful, the people are very friendly, staying in the dorms (for super cheap) was fun, the organizational flow of the classes and keynote speakers was great, the children's programs were wonderful... So many reasons why I would love to participate in an event like this every year, but the teachings in the classes were saddening to hear. In spite of what people tell you, you still think it can't be as bad as it's made out to be, but I was really saddened by the teachings I heard.
  
• My postpartum healing has gone very well and pretty quick this time around.
  
• Movable Type 4 will be coming out soon and I'm incredibly excited! I'm hoping the beta testing will be finished up before the new school year starts so I can install the new version for the student blogs. Seriously, I get all giddy thinking about all the stuff I'm going to be able to do with the new version. I'm a complete and hopeless geek. I can't deny it.
• And last, but not least, a gratutious baby photo:

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What are your plans for the weekend?

Have a baby, apparently!

Emma Cathlyn was born just three minutes into Saturday morning. She weighed 8 lbs, 14 ozs. We're all doing well.

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Audio: Congrats, you're the radio DJ! What six songs are in your first on-air set?
Submitted by LeendaDLL.

Ok, I totally couldn't decide what my first six would be, but the title really got a song stuck in my head: Panic by The Smiths (the chorus "I'm the DJ..."). If it got stuck your head too, here's your fix (it's just the chorus):

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I've never really considered myself to be the (excuse the term) "crunchy hippie" type, but lately it just seems like I keep having experiences that make it look that way.

I'm currently 33 weeks along and my belly is big. I mean it'sreally big, but that's normal for me. Both my kids have been over eight pounds at birth. Also, I'm short; there's just no place for my belly to expand except out. I look pretty uncomfortable, and well, Iam pretty uncomfortable.

So, kind of out of the blue today my midwife suggests that I can schedule an induction at 38 weeks if I'm really uncomfortable. Uncomfortable!? It's pregnancy, of course it's uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as having a baby too early. I know 38 weeks is technically term, but I trust my body to know better than me or the doctor if everything is done cooking (so to speak). It just felt so weird me telling the medical professional that "No, I'm ok waiting until I go into labor naturally." I mean, it's one thing to schedule an induction if there's a compelling medical reason, but I hardly see being uncomfortable as compelling. I've been blessed to be able to have both my kids vaginally (sorry to pull out the v-word, guys) without having to be induced. It makes me nervous to do anything that would possibly interfere with that track record.

I don't mean to paint an overly negative picture of the practice or this midwife. I've actually been very happy there and with her, but this was just a weird experience for me.

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Book: Show us a great non-fiction book.

This is a timely question, because I was just talking about what a great book this is in a previous post.

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Having two children so close together (my second and soon to be third child) has really got me thinking about birth control options. I love my children and, at the moment, haven't ruled out the idea of having more, but I really don't want to have them this close together again. Until this pregnancy, the idea of having kids so close together was a bit of a non-issue for me. Before we had our oldest son we didn't use any kind of birth control for about three years before conceiving him. So, forgive me if I didn't really consider myself the fertile type.

I've repeatedly talked to my GYN healthcare providers (usually a midwife in my case) about birth control options and the responses I get are to take something hormonal based (the pill, ring, etc.), get an IUD or use some kind of barrier method (condom or the like). None of these options are very appealing to me. I've not taken any form of birth control for the majority of the past six years (wow, that seems weird to think about in our culture), and, truthfully, I really like not taking birth control. For the short time I did take a hormonal birth control over the past six years (for about six months after the birth of my oldest son), it did not agree with me. I gained weight and at very least it didn't help things with my postpartum depression (at worst it contributed, perhaps even caused my PPD). I don't like the idea of anything as invasive as an IUD and as far as any long term use of a barrier method, well let's just say I'm married people! Are you kidding me! That's just not a realistic option for us. So, where does that leave us?

Through various blogs I subscribe to (which mainly focus topics like fertility and child raising) I've again and again seen mention of the book "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" by Toni Welcher. So when I saw a copy for sale on Craigslist for only $5 I decided to get the book and read it. This book is awesome! The whole time I was reading it I kept thinking over and over "why isn't this taught in Sex Ed. classes?!" TCOYF teaches the Fertility Awareness Method of birth control/pregnancy achievement. Reading this book led me to the book I'm currently reading "The Art of Natural Family Planning" by John F. Kippley and Shelia Kippley. I'm enjoying this book also. This book teaches the Natural Family Planning (NFP) method. It is very similar to FAM with the major difference being that when used for birth control FAM allows for the use of the use of barrier methods of birth control during fertile times and NFP is against any form of outside birth control. There are a few other nuances that distinguish the two methods, but that is the major difference.

So, what are your thoughts on birth control options for married people? Do any of you have any practical experience using NFP or FAM?

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That's right there will finally be another female added to the household. Now we just have to figure out names.

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Show us something you hold dear.
Submitted by Cindercone.

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I recently had to write this down to send in an email to an old friend of mine I was catching up with after a number of years apart. After writing it and thinking about it, I thought it would be a nice thing to document on my blog.

I went off birth control about a year after we were married, but didn't get pregnant until about two years later and then I miscarried early in that pregnancy. After about a year-and-a-half of no birth control and not getting pregnant we decided we should do something. I was getting pretty depressed. We talked about it and decided that neither of us really wanted to pursue the infertility treatments and would like to adopt instead. So we got the ball rolling with the adoption process, which basically starts off with a series of classes. We hadn't gotten far into it when I found out I was pregnant. I was so excited and happily told everyone I could. Then only a few weeks after I found out, I miscarried. How can I explain how difficult that was? It's losing a child. I know people say (and I heard people say to me) things like "At least you didn't know it longer. That would have been much worse." or "It's just a bunch of cells", but I tell you it was as painful an experience as if I lost one of my children I have today. And it stays with you. People think that once you have a healthy baby that all the pain of a miscarriage just sort of goes away, but that's not really true. I mean, like any painful experience you learn to deal with it and continue to manage your life, and slowly good days start to outnumber bad days, but it doesn't just go away when you have a "replacement"(?!) child. Anyway, after the miscarriage I had to stop everything baby related in our life. I just couldn't take it. Then about nine months after the miscarriage I got pregnant with Joel.

Joel's pregnancy was pretty uneventful (thankfully). I ended up going into labor one day shy of being induced (I was a week overdue). My total labor lasted just over 30 hours (I was only in the hospital for 12 hours of it, though). My epidural only worked on one side and I pushed for about one to two hours (I don't have a clear memory of that part, just that it was extremely painful in spite of me electing to have pain management). My postpartum period was miserable. It felt like I bled forever, I had postpartum depression and I just could not get the hang of breastfeeding. Long story short is I eventually healed, got help for my postpartum depression and switched to formula. The first three months were so rough, though. They are just a blur in my memory. I do remember shortly after coming home from the hospital that all I could think was "I don't know if I can do this again." Of course I ended up changing my mind, but that's how overwhelmed I felt at the time. I was so nervous about getting pregnant again that I went on birth control in spite of my history with infertility.

I went off birth control about six months after I had Joel hoping that perhaps sometime around his first birthday I would get pregnant. Well, Joel's first birthday came and went and I wasn't pregnant. So I just thought that maybe he would be our only child and I had to be ok with that. Of course I got pregnant again. This time with Micah.

MIcah's pregnancy was also pretty uneventful. I had normal pregnancy side effects (tired, sickness, heartburn, etc), but nothing to jeopardize me or the baby. I went into labor with him pretty close to his due date. I was so glad. I did not want to be overdue again. His labor, delivery and postpartum period were like night and day compared to Joel's. Micah's total labor was 12 hours. Only 5 of which were in the hospital. I labored at home for as long as I could and pretty much when I finally got to the hospital I was like "Ok, I'm ready for my epidural," but it took them an hour to process me, etc. to get me to the point where I receive an epidural. That was annoying to say the least, but that was by far the worst thing. When I finally got my epidural (that actually worked) I went to sleep for a few hours. I woke up when my water finally broke. The midwife came in and, I kid you not, I pushed three times and the baby was out. Yeah, a completely different experience! My postpartum period was really well also. I healed quickly, didn't have PPD and I was able to establish breastfeeding with this one. With the great experience I had with Micah I thought it would be just a waste of money to go back on birth control. It had always taken us nine months or longer to get pregnant and I was breastfeeding with Micah, so that should give me an additional buffer, right? I did end up having complications later when my milk started to dry up prematurely. I just switched to formula at that time. I wasn't interested in fighting that battle again. And shortly after that I end up getting pregnant with this latest one (much sooner than I would have ever guessed I would be).

The idea of family planning has been such a joke to us. We've wanted all of our children for certain, but "planned" them, not exactly. All of our "plans" seem to get thrown out the window as soon as they are made.

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My mother-in-law gave me a copy of the pictures she took of the Santa visit and I found this one in the bunch.

The challenge I have for you is to leave a comment with the best caption for this photo.

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Friends, comments, education, amusement: what's been the best thing to happen to you on Vox so far?

Vox has made me fall in love with blogging all over again and I've connected with some really cool people. I really wish there was a meet-up for the Atlanta area like there are for some other cities.

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Show us something seasonal.

I've been meaning to post these. I guess now is as good a time as any. These are the fruits from our visit with Santa:

I actually took more pictures than this, but these just about sum up our time with Santa. My youngest, who normally loves everyone, does not like Santa. To help calm him we showed him his older brother's candy cane (see pic 3). At which time my oldest son began chanting "no, mine, mine, my candy cane, mine, mine" etc. Yeah, every time you see the oldest with an open mouth he's in mid-chant saying "mine". Thankfully I didn't have to pay to see this Santa.

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What are the things in life that you're truly passionate about?
Submitted by Jess.

My religion. That affects the way I view and the way I behave in all aspects of my life. It shapes the way I raise my children, my behavior as a wife, the expectations I have of my husband, the way I treat other people, what I expect out of myself...everything. I cannot separate it from my political views, my sense of humor, my sense of sympathy and empathy, my understanding of love, my joy, or my sadness; it's all shaped by my religion.

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Are you a re-gifter? Have you ever re-gifted?
Submitted by Sandals.

Absolutely! I have a "white elephant" gift exchange with two different groups of people where the purpose is to not buy anything new, but to re-gift something you already have. I have a box in the corner of my closet where all year long I'll put possible white elephant gifts in there as I come across them. I am a big proponent of ways to spend less during the holiday season.

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My doctor appointment went well today. I scheduled my get-to-find-out-the-sex-of-the-baby ultrasound appointment today. It's for early January. So, I can't really put a poll up on here (I don't think), but I would love to hear your guesses about the gender of baby #3.

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I'm about three months now (a little over 13 weeks) and I think I'm slowly starting to feel a little better. I imagine I will get about three months where I'll feel like getting things done and the last few months will be huge lady misery.

My apetite has been strange this pregnancy. In past pregnancies I'm usually hungry all the time, but with this one I almost never feel hungry. I usually start to feel sick and think "Oh, I should eat something," but rarely do I have that normal "I'm hungry" feeling. It's annoying, to say the least.

I go in for a doctor's appointment today. Let's hope all's well.

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Show us something blue.

blue pajamas

I love Buck Owens's Christmas stuff. In general I'm not a big fan of country music, but Buck Owens is great!

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In honor of Vox's launch tomorrow, what's your favorite feature or aspect of Vox?

I love sense of community Vox builds. I know that's what they're supposed to do, but I think they do a really good job. It's so easy to find people with similar interests to yourself and Vox also makes a great effort to introduce you to people with different interests from yourself.

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How many computers do you have in your house?
Submitted by Foomper.

Let's see.... We have my MacBook, my husband's iBook, my oldest son's old blue iMac, an old pink iMac that we're setting up for someone else, my old PowerBook (which now works and I feel guilty about). We own a few more Macs, but those are put to use in my husband's classroom. I guess they don't count as computers in our house. So that makes five computers in our house (at the moment).

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I found out that I'm pregnant recently with my third child. The baby is due late May/early June. We're very excited. It's funny, we really didn't think I would be able to get pregnant this fast. It took us three years with our first and nine months with our second. I know you're thinking I should have seen a pattern there, but when you go through three years of infertility, you just learn to assume not pregnant. Well, now I look like little miss fertility. It's kind of strange to be able to see the whole family planning conundrum from both perspectives.

So what's going on with me is that I've been swamped with volunteer work as usual, but now it's particularly pressing, because of the pregnancy. I don't know why I have such a rose-colored memory of pregnancy (when I'm not pregnant). I always feel like I've been run over by a truck in the first trimester. I have incredible fatigue and feel nauseated ALL DAY. I'm excited about the pregnancy, but I'll be glad when I start feeling better.

In other news, I had a birthday recently. I'm not thirty, yet!

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What are 5 things you'd like to accomplish in the next 5 years?

Have more kids.

Grow spiritually.

Learn how to better balance my life.

Grow in my technical knowledge

Grow in my domestic skills.

I know it doesn't seem to live up to the idea of "ambitious," but I'm really happy with where my life is right now. I'm not really interested in any major life changes right now. I'd like my short description to still be accurate in the next five years: "I'm a stay-at-home mom who enjoys volunteering for web and print design projects." My husband should be finished with or close to finishing his doctorate by that time. That would be a good thing to accomplish, but that's really for his list, although it does have an impact on mine. It is weird to think that we will have kids in school by that time.

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I am in vox withdrawal. I'm trying to get a quick fix tonight and then it's back to busy, busy. I'm so jealous of those of you that have made time to vox recently. There have been some really cool qotd's and vox hunts that I've missed. I'll have to go back and participate in some of them. I have other news I want to write about, but I just can't do it concisely enough for the time I'm stealing to write this. I'll be back as a regular soon. I promise, I promise.

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As the title says, this has been a busy week. We just got back from our trip to FHU Sunday evening. We had to drive back to a different church congregation because this week also starts our area cooperative meeting. The cooperative meeting is a once-a-year event where a preacher is invited to come speak at a number of area congregations over a series of days. Traditionally, the cooperative meeting hasn't been much of an evangelistic tool as an opportunity for edification within the church. And that's fine to have something like that. It is really nice to see all people from different congregations.

This week has also really started the stress from yearbook and newspaper. The first yearbook deadline fast approaching and first newspaper will be coming out soon, which means stress for my husband and lots of extra odd and end jobs for me. It's funny, my husband was talking about how the cooperative meeting always comes at such a stressful time in the year, there's a strong temptation just not to go. Every time we do go, however, we always feel refreshed and revived. We're always glad we went. I guess that's what its supposed to do.

I'm also working on getting things ready for an outreach effort that's about to start for my church. Every year my church rents a booth at the North Georgia State Fair to raise awareness and answer questions about the Bible and the churches of Christ. If you're in the area, please stop by. Anyway, we always agonize over exactly what to have to give out to people and I usually volunteer to create some of the items that fall into the category of "wouldn't it be cool if we had..." (at this point my husband promptly volunteers me to create that). This year I've actually had a lighter load of stuff to create, just a sticker that fits the size of a mailing label, yet still looks cute. I'm also creating a kind of label card to go with a short bead craft activity for kids.

That's basically why I haven't posted much this week. I hope to be vox'ing some more in the near future.

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What's up?

I'm with our church youth group atFreed-Hardeman University forR.U.S.H. They have a campus wide wireless network. I'm happy.

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What do you collect?

I think we collect Apple products. We have a Mac Book, two Power Books (12 inch & 15 inch), iBook, Pismo, iMac (flat screen melon), iMac (blue), two Mac Mini's, iBook without working logic board, two iPods 5G (one white, one black), iPod 3G, and an iPod Shuffle (not working). Granted, my husband uses most of the computers in his classroom (and he is currently trying to sell some of them), but, yeah, they are all ours.

Edit:I forgot to mention that I posted this entry in a Krystal's parking lot on my way toFHU. Does that count as moblogging?

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Show us something you use every day.

My mac is the first thing I thought of, but I still sometimes (rarely) go a day without it. So I thought some more...

yep, diapers.... Every. Single. Day.

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How many languages can you speak? Which languages can you read or understand?

My Spanish isvery limited, but I seem to know enough to get around when needed. There is a Spanish speaking service at my church and I used to attend that service, in addition to the English speaking service, before I had kids. Since I've had kids, attending both services is just too much to ask of the kids (and expect them to behave well). When I did attend the Spanish language service I could usually get the gist of the lesson and could easily participate in the song service. Even if I didn't always understand all the words I was singing in Spanish, I could at least sing them because Spanish has such consistent pronunciation rules.

I also know a little bit of German. I lived in Germany for a short period as a child. Unfortunately, I've probably forgotten most of it. I still know a few basic words and how to count to ten in German, but that's about all.

Update: Duh! I speak English, too (of course). English is my first language. I'm such a dumb American.

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Show us a picture of someone that can always makes you laugh.

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Dial M for Murder

If you could watch any movie on the big screen right at this moment, what would it be?

I'd love to see Dial M for Murder on the big screen with the 3-D glasses!

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What are your personal memories of September 11th?

I remember what a beautiful day it was in Georgia. I worked at this place that had a screened in porch where we could eat lunch. I remember looking out the window of the screened in porch and marveling at just how tranquil it was right there. And I remember thinking "how can it be so tranquil here right now?" It was such a contrast to the tragic events that were happening elsewhere. I had just seen images on the television of people jumping from ridiculous heights in the tower to their death, the second tower crumbling and the surrounding panic. All of it was so hard to process. Everything just seemed so removed and surreal.

I also remember being afraid of what life would be like after that day. I had visions of some awfulNineteen Eighty-Four meetsThe Handmaid's Tale world coming to power.

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If you could only save one thing in a house fire (thing, not person), what would it be and why?
Submitted by donnunn.

My backup/archive hard drive. I have digital copies of most of my pictures, most of the family videos and a recent backup of my (and my husband's) hard drive. I figure if it is just one thing I can get, I'll get the most bang for my buck from grabbing the hard drive.

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I read Reesie's post about her voice and got inspired (as you'll hear) and made my own recording of my voice. I definitely have preconceived notions of what people sound like in real life.

So, take a listen. What do you think?

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Ok, Vox team, I took your advice. I invited my mother to have a Vox blog. She's really excited about it, doesn't really know what to do with it yet, but she's excited. Hopefully, I can get her into moblogging, because she loves taking pictures with her phone. I'll keep you posted.

To all of you other friends and family I've invited, but have refused or haven't setup your blog yet: Come on people, you don't know what you are missing! Vox is all about the love of blogging.

I love Movable Type. I've used it for years, evangelized it's merits to others and will continue to do so, but I've always had trouble maintaining a MT based personal blog. I think for me, I'm always looking for the next bell and whistle, and tweak I can do to my blog. I would always use my MT blog as a sort of testing ground to try out stuff I wanted to implement on other projects. All of this to the detriment of actual blogging. Vox has allowed me to fall in love with blogging all over again. Vox gives just enough customization to make it feel my own, but it doesn't go overboard so that I get bogged down in the details. If you want to tweak every little detail of your blog,learn Movable Type. If you want to just blog and love it, Vox is your home. Vox is about the love of blogging.

Sorry for the Vox PSA (I know I'm preaching to the converted here), but I really am having a wonderful time with my Vox blog.

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Share a photo of something that comforts you.

Everyone is where they should be and all is right with the world.

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What was the last game you played?

I play make-the-baby-smile a lot. I also play Little-People's-adventures-around-the-living-room quite often (this one usually involves them falling off of stuff). The last game I played with other adults was probably cards (rummy, spades, rook, etc.). I did get roped into a church softball game a few years ago.

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I got my new MacBook from FedEx yesterday. She's so pretty. What's even better is my sweet husband also upgraded her to 120 gig hard drive and 2 gig of ram (he did the installation). Now, that's a good husband. Here's a self portrait:

Taken with her built-in iSight camera. How cool is that?!

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Share a photo of your commute.

This is the hallway from my bedroom to my living room. You'll notice some tools of my trade along the way: a baby gate, a few Little People and at the end you'll see my youngest baby. Also, notice all the doors are closed. That's a toddler (my oldest baby) precaution. That's my commute.

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Take a photo of an accident or a mistake.

This was the first time I tried to let my oldest son eat yogurt by himself. He got impatient with using the spoon and tried to "drink" the yogurt. It didn't work out like he planned.

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I love the singing at church. We have congregational acapella singing. It's so beautiful to listen to and be a part of. I found this video of a church of Christ in Alabama that recorded their congregation singing. It is pretty typical of the churches of Christ that I've visited.

Most people not familiar with worship services within the churches of Christ are a little taken aback by how "sparse" the service seems, but look past that and just hear the singing. It's beautiful. Close your eyes and just listen.

At the end of the video are a few people just singing for fun after the service. I used to love to do that. Not many people at the congregation where I attend now like to do that. I miss it.

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What is your favorite children's movie?

The Last Unicorn

It's too bad that there's not a really good DVD version of this movie.

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Take a photo of a flag.

Is this cheating? I love this picture and I remembered it had a flag in it. :)

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Take a photo of a hand-me-down.

My youngest son has almost no clothes that are just his own. They are pretty much all hand-me-downs. I have two boys. One born in March the other in April. The clothes were the perfect hand-me-down, right season and everything.

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I just readthis post over at Blogging Baby debating the question of whether or not allowing 1 to 1 laptop programs in schools is a good thing? Obviously, I have pretty strong feelings about the subject, being a lover of technology myself and the wife of a school teacher, but what do you think?

Here's the comment I left:

I live in Cobb County and I'm for 1 to 1 programs. My husband is a high school teacher of Language Arts and Journalism in a high needs Cobb County school. He's always had a heavy emphasis on integrating the use of technology in his classes. He has a 1 to 1 Mac lab in his classroom that he uses with all his classes and for his journalism classes he has a few older Mac laptops that he allows editors to take home (This is made possible primarily because so many people underestimate the value and usefulness of an old Mac. This year he got upgraded to an eMac lab, because another school just didn't want it.). You would be surprised at the lack of basic computer knowledge from these kids. Little things like hitting the spacebar after putting a period at the end of a sentence (it's shocking how many students don't do that). What's the difference between an email address and a website URL? That's also commonly not understood. These are things you really should know in college and the job world. The use of the computers in a journalism class is pretty obvious (I think), typing stories, photo editing, layout, emailing (each journalism student gets an email address), business record management, website design and maintenance, etc., but what are you going to use the computers for in an English class, other than typing essays? Well first off every student in his classes have a student blog (powered by Movable Type). Students typically write better if they know they will have an audience of more people, especially peers, than just their teacher. One of the best ways to improve writing is to read a lot and write a lot. The blog is an easy way to encourage writing that can be quickly checked for progress by the teacher (RSS feeds), versus a paper journal. The students have directed writing assignments in addition to free write. The students also create various types of presentations to demonstrate and convey their knowledge of the subject: PowerPoint/Keynote presentations, movies (using iMovie), podcasts (using GarageBand), etc. What is the use of learning information if you can't use it to using to create something else or how to effectively convey the information to someone else? It's all about alternate assessment. Not every kid is good at sitting down with pen and paper and writing an essay to tell what he knows (not to mention, have you ever tried to read sixty handwritten essays?!). Essay writing is definitely a skill we should work on, yes, but sometimes you just want to see what the student knows. Does anyone really think that 1 to 1 use of computers is not the direction we're heading? Do we really think that in the future kids will still exclusively use pen and paper, and only have paper books? What technology skills will these kids need to know in college and in the work place? Expected skill in the use of technology is no longer limited to computer science majors and the like. Even English majors need to know this stuff now.

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What are your plans for the holiday weekend?

Work :(

I have about sixty student blogs left to make (after I upgrade MT and redo all my hacks). I also have about forty student press passes to make, easy but tedious. I also have a couple of other projects I really should make some more progress on, but those are not my priority this weekend.

So, what am I doing with my time right now?

Vox'ing and watching the Georgia game (Go Dawgs!).

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I've been silently pouting about this. Movable Type came out with a minor upgrade that fixeda lot of small issues. Some of which were affecting me.* So I'm excited about that, right. The problem is that with this latest version (prior update) was my first venture into hacking Movable Type. I changed all kinds of default template settings to make creating a whole bunch of student blogs a little easier on me. I was so proud of my work...in point of fact: that it worked is what I was really proud of. But here's the rub. I'm excited about the upgrades, but I'm all bummed that I'll have to redo my hacks. Talk about bittersweet!

*Oh and by the way, that "Powered by" widget, that was all me. Check yourProNet records. Sadly, no credit. I'm trying to do my part guys, every little bit helps, right? ;)

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I went to a high school football game with my husband at the school where he teaches. The football team lost the game, but the band was great. They're a high step band. They were awesome in person. I took a few pictures, but those don't even come close to how cool it was to see and hear them in action

They are apparently an award winning band. I found a video of them on YouTube.

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Take a photo of a celebration

This is my oldest son going down a "big boy" slide for the first time. He was about 18 months old.

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Vox

What is your favorite way to relieve stress?

Lately, it's been Vox'ing.

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Arrange at least four people in height order (shortest to tallest) and snap a picture.

My two kids and two of my husband's students. It's actually kind of funny. I didn't tell them what I was doing. I just said line up and let me take your picture. And they did.

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I took my kids to the zoo yesterday with some friends. I got out my camera all excited about getting a bunch of cute pictures of the kids at the zoo. After snapping only one photo my camera battery died. I was so mad. What's worse about it is that before I left in the morning I thought about taking my digital Rebel, but instead I opted to just use my small digital camera I carry around in my purse. The small one is easier to carry and I thought I would mostly get posed shots anyway. I saw so many cute photo moments and this is the only photo I got. All I could think about is my really good camera sitting at home going unused.

That's my kid standing on the railing with a friend of mine holding him. All in all, we did have a great time, in spite of not being able to document it.

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Ok, I did it. I got my hair all chopped off! I even had enough to donate (over ten inches).

So, it's not exactly the Fake Lady Haircut, but I really like it and it's so much lighter. My husband hasn't even seen my new cut yet. Enjoy the sneak preview.

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What song or lyrics are stuck in your head at the moment? What album is it from?
Submitted by Lox Ly.

Love Song by The Cure

I think I just heard it on the radio, actually. We have this great new radio station in Atlanta, which is now my new favorite, 92.9 Dave FM. They seem to play such a random assortment of music. It's like listening to my iPod.

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Take a photo of something orange.

Again, I'm taking pictures of my son's toys.

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What's your favorite way to keep in touch? Phone, snail mail, email, text message, Vox, _____ ?

Email. It's quick, easy, you can reply right away or wait until a better time. It's convenient.

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Show us something that takes your breath away.

This is shortly after I gave birth to my second child. He's four months old now.

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What is your browser's default home page set to?
Submitted by Kelev T. Cat.

Google. Yeah I know, I use Safari (except when I'm posting here--Firefox) and it has a Google search build right into the tool-bar, but I just haven't found anything I like better. I did finally start using the customized Google page, which is a little better. It's still kind of lame choice though.

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Who says two-year-olds aren't organized?!

Completely without prompting he decided to arrange his Little People farm like this. Maybe there is hope for a tidy home. (yeah right!)

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All last night I've been really thinking about getting a serious haircut. I thought it was so funny when I saw that Arvind had been thinking about a haircut also! I haven't had a real styled haircut since I was in the eighth grade (about 13 years old). I've pretty much had the same haircut since then. Granted, it has been varying lengths, but to me, it's the same haircut. I have straight brown hair that's all one length. Right now it's about down to my waist. I get trims, and every so often I'll cut it back to about shoulder length. It usually grows back to waist length in about six months to a year. So, it's the same haircut, it just changes lengths every now and then. I want something different. I want something that's cute and hip, and maybe slightly styled. I don't think I can handle styled, styled hair, but something easy I think I could do. I am way too low maintenance for anything beyond that.

So last night I found this site that lets you create a virtual haircut. This is the haircut I came up with. I probably won't have it styled exactly like that (I can just see myself running around after two kids with that little wisp of hair in front of one eye), but I like the layers and it looks pretty forgiving when it comes to having to "fix" it. Now I just have to get up the courage to actually get my hair CUT!

UPDATE: I talked to my sister-in-law at church tonight to get the phone number of the place I wanted to go to (it's a woman who is a friend of hers) and she said that she's going there tomorrow morning. She's calling her tonight to make sure she can fit me in and usually anything before school lets out is pretty flexible.